D&D 5E Why are non-caster Ranger themes so popular?

[MarkB]

Depends on your interpretation of his healing abilities - are they magical or are they skill? In a Middle Earth, where elven magic is indistinguishable from skill and with Aragorn learning his craft from Elrond, does it really matter?
Either interpretation, magic or skill, is perfectly justifiable given the source material. Games incorporating that influence just need to make a choice - and that's art, not science.

But also, are those abilities intrinsic to Rangers? Aragorn wears a couple of hats, and his healing abilities are strongly tied to his royal lineage - "the hands of the King are the hands of a healer."

An equally good archetype is Faramir and his rangers of Gondor. They don't display special powers, but are utterly at home in the woods, and come across as being a combination between scouts and guerilla fighters - capable of striking from ambush against superior forces and then fading back into the wilderness.

 

[Charlaquin]

Or potentially with a spell-like trait, but not an actual spell. Perhaps if you pick fiend as your favored enemy, you learn special banishment rituals. The ol' bell-book-candle routine. That sort of thing.

Yeah, I’m up for that!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, this. A spell-less ranger could always have a caster subclass, or you could multiclass.

OR....the ranger could have spell-like actions that aren't called "spells" and thus can't be counterspelled.

Nah, Spellcasting subclasses get way too little Spellcasting for that to be an acceptable solution for those of us who prefer a Spellcasting Ranger.

But basing both Spellcasting and non-Spellcasting Ranger abilities on spell slots would do the job.

 

[Horwath]

But also, are those abilities intrinsic to Rangers? Aragorn wears a couple of hats, and his healing abilities are strongly tied to his royal lineage - "the hands of the King are the hands of a healer."

An equally good archetype is Faramir and his rangers of Gondor. They don't display special powers, but are utterly at home in the woods, and come across as being a combination between scouts and guerilla fighters - capable of striking from ambush against superior forces and then fading back into the wilderness.

This,
sad thing is that in 5e Rogue(Scout) with 1 level of fighter will have a better "ranger" feeling than any ranger.

 

[Krachek]

To play a spell less Ranger, my first take would be the rogue scout.

The fighter can be a decent ranger. push Wisdom as secondary stat, take perception, survival, use ASI and extra ASI for skill expert and even Prodigy. Even the Samurai subclass can help to make a more social Ranger. BM can help making trip attack and other use of unusual weapon. The dip of one level of rogue for a dex fighter is also another classic option.

To me the spell-less Ranger is already there.

 

[Horwath]

Actually, I think you kind of can. For example, Paladins never have to cast spells. They can use all their spell slots on smiting. I would be ok with something similar as an alternative to a non-spellcasting ranger. I’m not sure what ability you could give to rangers that spell slots would fuel, but if one could be thought up, I’d accept that.

Elemental attack:
when you hit with melee or ranged attack you can spend a spell slot of 1st level or higher to deal extra damage.
Pick damage type from list of acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder.
damage is 2d8 + 1d8 for every spell level above 1st to a max of 5d8 for 4th level spell slot.

 

[Minigiant]

But also, are those abilities intrinsic to Rangers? Aragorn wears a couple of hats, and his healing abilities are strongly tied to his royal lineage - "the hands of the King are the hands of a healer."

An equally good archetype is Faramir and his rangers of Gondor. They don't display special powers, but are utterly at home in the woods, and come across as being a combination between scouts and guerilla fighters - capable of striking from ambush against superior forces and then fading back into the wilderness.

They are intrinsic to Rangers in a normal magic settings.
LOTR is a very low magic setting so the rangers needed little magic.

D&D Forest table includes giant snakes, centaurs, lycantropes, gorgons, giants, dryads, yaunt ti, revanents, treants, green dragons. And that's not including devils, demons, vampiries, and spellcasters that can be summoned there or take abandoned castles. Then Underdark villians can pop up anytime.

Except for in 4e, D&D got more and more magical in base over time.

Faramir and his rangers would get wiped out in Greyhawk, Exandria, Eberron, and especially FR.

 

[Hussar]

I suspect some desire for a spellless ranger variant comes from gamers who'd like to run Ranger-type characters in a very low magic sword & sorcery setting. They need a class that neatly fills the archetype of "martial survivalist", a competent fighter who's also an expert in terrain, tracking, foraging, etc. And they'd like to have that as a purely magic-free option for settings where magic is reserved for overtly magical characters like royal wizards or cult warlocks.

I think this got lost in the scrum. But this? This right here hits the nail on the head.

Not every campaign is chock a block with rakshasa or demons or other critters that are super high magical. Some campaigns focus more on mundane threats where magic and whatnot are not quite so prevalent in the world.

Now, I realize that default 5e is Potterverse where everyone that matters is a caster of some degree. But, allowing for a ranger that follows more the Barbarian route of having a few supernatural abilities rather than an outright spell list simply broadens the archetype and makes it more accessible for other types of campaigns. Note, no one is saying that it should be the only option in the game. It should be an option, not the only option. We have fighters that run the gamut from purely non-caster to half caster, so, why not rangers?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Actually, I think you kind of can. For example, Paladins never have to cast spells. They can use all their spell slots on smiting. I would be ok with something similar as an alternative to a non-spellcasting ranger. I’m not sure what ability you could give to rangers that spell slots would fuel, but if one could be thought up, I’d accept that.

Yeah, I could see that. I guess I'd like to see it written in a way that you give up spellcasting completely. I.e., "You do not learn or cast any spells, however you still have your spell slots, which you can use to power the following abilities...."

 

[Hussar]

No need for that.

Just more unique 1st and 2nd level ranger spells.

How you want ranger hunt demon with no Banishment? You want ranger hunt demon, yes? Then give ranger Banishment spells!

But, the default description of rangers is protectors of the wilderness. What are demons doing in the wilderness? Aren't demons pretty much always found around those who summon them? It's not like you have demons on the random encounter tables for most wildernesses.

To put it another way - demon hunter isn't a typical ranger concept and lies pretty far outside of the expected role of a ranger. To be fair, fiends are on the list of potential favored enemies, but, what would be the favored terrain to go with that? And, frankly, until the party hits pretty high level, have you ever seen a ranger take fiend as a favored enemy?

How many campaigns do you play in where fiends are a common enough enemy that the ranger player is taking Fiends as a favored enemy?